That's me flipping the bird at Cinderella's Castle in the Magic Kingdom in June 2008.
I knew there was something hinky about the whole damn place as soon as we drove onto the grounds. Disney World is like an otherworldly cartoon prison colony. You enter the land of the Mouse and the "action" is buffered by a desolate necklace of undeveloped land. No streets, no convenience stores, no people. No nothing until you get close to the Magic Kingdom and then it's all Disney. If you think you're going have a little stroll off grounds to take in some local color, forget it. You're in Disney and you're going to eat, breath and sleep Disney exactly as Disney thinks you should until you leave Disney.
Shit's plain weird.
Turns out my totalitarian depiction isn't that far off. T. D. Allman illuminatess my cynical observations in his explanation of, "the approach that to this day allows the Disney organization to avoid taxation and environmental regulation as well as maintain immunity from the U.S. Constitution," in an excerpt of his new book, Finding Florida, for The Daily Beast.
A couple select quotes from the link:
"The posthumous Walt Disney, like the mechanical Andrew Jackson in the Hall of the Presidents, had joined Mickey, Donald, and the Sorcerer's Apprentice in that special world where it doesn't matter whether you're real or not."
"Disney and his successors pioneered a business model based on public subsidy of private profit coupled with corporate immunity from the laws, regulations, and taxes imposed on actual people that now increasingly characterizes the economy of the United States."
MUST READ.
Dear Mickey Mouse:
If you have your ears on somewhere out there, behold the five-year-old photo of my commentary on you and your environs above. My position remains unchanged. Go to hell.
Love, Erin
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12 comments:
I've always HATED everything Disney and been roundly nashed for it by friends and not friends alike.
You're entirely right, Erin. It's a totalitarian state and just this side of a penal colony except YOU PAY THEM to go there.
You're my new hero.
Me three.
People didn't used to believe me when I told them that Central Florida was so eager to get Didney that they basically ceded a substantial amount of territory to the Disney Corporation...
MR
Hey, it's the self funded propaganda arm of the government. Of course they don't pay taxes.
As ungermane as ever, Woodrow...
MR
PS: The WV missed my pick-four number by one digit again.
I could never get the whole Disneyland thing. I have friends who really do think it is the happiest place on earth. But me, not so much.
My parents took me there as a child, and I hated it everytime. Even when I was young enough not to know better, my parents tell me I cried the whole time.
A few years ago, Alan and I won a trip to Disneyland...whoo hoo!! I thought I'd give it another chance and see what all the fuss was about. Well....
I ended up back at our room hallucinating with sunstroke and a near Xanax overdose. (Apparently I don't do well in the heat with long lines and screaming children?!) Yeah, it was fun.
Not.
of course if you hate Disney, do not patronize the place. That is the best, quickest way to make it go away.
There is no requirement to visit. You are free to boycott the place, the movies, the merchandise.
I recounted my own Disney experience a few years ago.
From the link:
All too soon, I am pried from my computer, dragged clawing backward through the house and muscled into the backseat of the car. I'm on my way to five days and four nights of Mouseketeer fun. "The horror, the horror," I lament as we pull out of the drive.
Isn't there a big group of "occupy Cleveland" people with nothing to do these days? Occupy Disney!?
i ran the disney marathon bunches of years ago, the only thing that got me to disney. never did get that place. that marathon sucked. we ran through the damn septic tank fields! plus, at about mile 18, they had some of the more evil disney characters taunting the runners. as in "may as well quit", "you'll never make it", and the like. totally, totally sucked.
RR: That is positively nightmarish. GAWD!
@rraine: One would suspect that the Disney Corporation might take that line of commentary because they realised there was an activity, long-distance running, that they couldn't slap a copyright on.
MR
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